The short answer is "yes."
Relationships can be a healing space
Back in 2020 we were about six weeks or so from lockdown in the UK, and I walked into Quaker Meeting one Sunday in February and met a man who would change my life.
Mark was not the first man to change my life, but he had the most profound impact because he gave me something no-one else has ever been able to give me. And that was a space in which I could heal.
We met again three weeks later, and then we had a month getting to know each other before the lockdown started.
There wasn’t much else to do in lockdown except talk. So we did. A lot. We learned about each other’s trauma history, and we both began a healing process which was very different from what we had experienced before.
The really important point is that we were neither of us trying to fix the other
When 2020 started, I was half-way through advanced clarity coach training with my mentor, Jamie Smart, and I had had some major insights which had already moved me forward on my healing journey. During the months that followed when I had a lot of time to reflect, I had more insights.
But the thing which really made the difference was the love Mark and I shared. It was like a catalyst for all sorts of healing processes, including being able to sit with difficult feelings, welcoming my wounded child and addressing some of the survival patterns I had created as a child and adolescent.
I remember a day when Mark was in an angry place and I was feeling really depressed. We both knew that our feelings were not caused by each other. And we both knew that we could not fix each other.
Mark did what he always does when he’s angry or irritable: he assured me that I was not responsible for his mood and he took himself off to his studio to ‘reset’. That day, as he was leaving he said “You can’t fix my anger and I can’t fix your despair.”
And that was all right. Because we both knew we would be ok.
And over the three and a half years we have been together, we have healed. It’s like a dance, in which two people support each other and create a magical space in which healing happens.
It may seem counter-intuitive that a relationship can be a space in which we can heal. Particularly if your relationship is not an easy place at the moment. This is even more likely to be the case if you have experienced trauma in childhood or adolescence.
How trauma plays out in relationships
Most of us have had some trauma in our past. It needn’t be big T trauma such as child abuse. Small T trauma can also impact on our adult relationships.
The thing is that most of us are unaware of how our childhood survival patterns show up in our adult relationships. I certainly was.
We evolve ways of being in relationship in response to what we experience in our families. When parenting has been loving and supportive it is easier to form healthy attachments.
But where the parenting we experienced was less than good enough, particularly if we encountered rejection, abuse or neglect, we are much more likely to form dysfunctional attachment styles in adulthood.
These dysfunctional attachment styles show up particularly in marriage and romantic relationships, because these relationships are so much more intense than other relationships such as with friends and colleagues.
So we can seem perfectly healthy at work, while being caught up in all kinds of dysfunctional behaviours with the person we thought we loved most in the world.
The good news is that when we start to become conscious of what we are doing we can change that behaviour and the relationship can transform into a space for healing.
I know that I started my healing journey long before I met Mark. But it was slow and painful. With Mark it has happened with greater ease and has taken me on a journey of deep transformation.
The importance of acceptance
Mark and I were able to accept each other and recognise that we were not responsible for each other’s moods and feelings.
So with Mark, my dysfunctional patterns could be brought out into the light and revealed for what they are – patterns that I created to keep myself safe, when I was at boarding school for instance. He has supported me lovingly as I have become aware of them (and their impact on him), and I have been able to allow myself to let them go.
For instance it is no longer of overwhelming importance to me that I be right all the time. In fact I can happily acknowledge that I do get things wrong! And I’ve been able to stop believing that I must persuade my partner of the validity of my understanding of the world. I know we have different realities and that’s fine.
It may seem like I am lucky – I have a new partner and we both see things differently from the way we did when we were young and inexperienced. But change is possible wherever you are in your relationship, as long as you are prepared to change.
You may have to bring your partner kicking and screaming into the process. But that won’t even start if you don’t begin the change yourself.
What change could you make right now?
Could you let go of a need to be right all the time?
Or could you start to listen to your partner with curiosity instead of judgement?
If you’d like to find out more about how to get this process started, you can download my e-book, Three Steps to a Magical Relationship.